Mike couldn’t help but eavesdrop. The two guys that sat next to him at the bar weren’t quiet. But they were also talking fly fishing. Judging by their attire, they did more than just talk about fly fishing. He had just come off the river himself, and was celebrating a decent day with a burger and a couple of beers. Other people’s business was usually the last thing he cared about. Their volume and proximity made avoidance difficult. And, truth be told, the conversation was more interesting than the ballgame.
“Well I started fly fishing when I was like 12 or 13.” This was the guy just to his right. He had on a red hat with a big tackle company’s name on the front. “I bought an old rod and reel at a neighborhood yard sale and used anything from my dad’s tackle box that I could cast. Little soft plastics and panfish lures. It was awesome. Well, getting hooked in the back of the head by a treble hook because my cast stunk wasn’t awesome. But it was fun and I was learning every time I went out.”
Red’s friend (drinking Bud, so Mike thought of him as Bud, naturally) made a few jokes about using panfish lures on a 5-weight.
“I didn’t know any better,” Red said. “It wasn’t until some old dude that lived by the park where I fished came and brought me a bunch of woolly buggers and little poppers. He told me they’d be easier to cast and a whole lot less dangerous. That guy was really cool. I mean, taking the time to just talk to a kid he didn’t know? Give him flies? That was when I first really fly fished, I guess.”
Bud told a story about his dad hiring a guide. It meandered a bit, but the general flow was that Bud had been to some premier angling destinations before he could drive. He didn’t sound particularly grateful or proud of the whole endeavor.
Red was slightly more pleasant. “I don’t think I hired a guide until college. It was on day one of a week in Montana with some frat brothers. We caught a lot of trout that day, less the next, and then the nights got later and later and fishing was sort of just the scenery.” Bud chimed in with some incredibly colorful escapades that were only believable because such things are what some young people actually do.
Their second round of drinks paused Bud’s raunchy trip down memory lane. Red then recounted graduating, landing an incredibly lucrative tech job, and the quick accumulation of angling accessories and adventures. “Man, it was that first paycheck and I was right at the fly shop. Rod, reel, waders, shades; I had never spent that kind of money before. I didn’t need, it, you know. But that’s fly fishing. Each year it was the next thing. Now I won’t fish with anything but the best. I don’t know if it really makes much of a difference, but it’s fun to have it. Makes for good pictures, that is for sure. Lots of likes. And my guides notice, too.”
Bud didn’t have a response to that comment. Red was just smiling, nodding as he nibbled on pretzels and looking at the TV. “I mean, my last guide said he hadn’t even heard of the rod I was fishing with. I texted that to my frat brothers right there on the boat. They all chimed in that I should be guiding him!”
Under the auspices of checking his phone, Mike scooted a few inches away from the conversation. Bud spoke up in a changing the subject tone. “Hey, did you catch anything at that last bend before the parking lot? I thought I saw a big fish rising in there.”
“No,” Red said, keeping his gaze on the game in front of him. “It looked fishy. But there was this kid at the pool’s tailout. He was flailing all over the place and spending more time untangling himself than he was fishing. When he was fishing he was beating the water to crap with his line. Screwed the whole pool up. I just kept on walking. Screwed the whole pool up for me.”
The bartender brought out their food. He gave Bud a plate of chicken wings. Turning to Red he said, “I got your fried plate right here: chicken, haddock, and frog legs.”
“Should be boiled frog,” Mike muttered to himself. Red looked over at him, but Mike was paying more attention to the baseball game.